Behavior Patterns Articles & Videos

  • Millennials as Digital Natives: Myths and Realities

    As the new largest generation in the American workforce, Millennials are subject to rampant speculation, investigation, and even some moral panic. These young adults have high expectations about user interfaces and are confident in their skills, but they’re error prone and their tendency to multitask reduces their task efficiency.

  • Long-Term Exposure to Flat Design: How the Trend Slowly Decreases User Efficiency

    Clickable UI elements with absent or weak visual signifiers condition users over time to click and hover uncertainly across pages — reducing efficiency and increasing reliance on contextual cues and immediate click feedback. Young adult users may be better at perceiving subtle clickability clues, but they don’t enjoy click uncertainty any more than other age groups.

  • Page Parking: Multi-Tab Mania

    Browser tabs separate the stages of collection and comparing and serve as memory aids to keep many alternate pages available for consideration as users are shopping or researching. 7 UX guidelines support this user behavior, which is particularly common among younger users.

  • Why Designers Think Users Are Lazy: 3 Human Behaviors

    Designs should align with common user behaviors like device inertia, momentum behavior, and selective attention rather than blaming users for perceived laziness.

  • The Fold Manifesto: Why the Page Fold Still Matters

    What appears at the top of the page vs. what’s hidden will always influence the user experience — regardless of screen size.

  • Designing for 5 Types of E-Commerce Shoppers

    Considering e-commerce shoppers’ motivations and habits when they come to a site can help designers make decisions that improve overall site usability while supporting users’ needs.

  • User Expertise Stagnates at Low Levels

    Learning is hard work, and users don't want to do it; they don't explore the user interface and don't know about most features.

  • Internet Activity Bias Causes Lumpy User Behavior

    Dramatic differences in how much people use the web on different days can distort simplistic interpretations of site analytics.

  • College Students on the Web

    Students use websites and social media extensively to complete various different tasks. They are multitaskers who appreciate simple, easy-to-use websites and products.

  • Velocity of Media Consumption: TV vs. the Web

    The granularity of user decisions is much finer on the Web, which is dominated by the instant gratification of the user's needs in any given instant. Content must cater to this rapid pace.

  • How Little Do Users Read?

    On the average Web page, users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit; 20% is more likely.

  • Middle-Aged Users' Declining Web Performance

    Between the ages of 25 and 60, people's ability to use websites declines by 0.8% per year - mostly because they spend more time per page, but also because of navigation difficulties.

  • Life-Long Computer Skills

    Schools should teach deep, strategic computer insights that can't be learned from reading a manual.

  • Digital Divide: The 3 Stages

    The economic divide is a non-issue, but the usability and empowerment divides alienate huge population groups who miss out on the Internet's potential.

  • Variability in User Performance

    When doing website tasks, the slowest 25% of users take 2.4 times as long as the fastest 25% of users. This difference is much higher than for other types of computer use; only programming shows a greater disparity.

  • Users Interleave Sites and Genres

    When working on business problems, users flitter among sites, alternating visits to different service genres. No single website defines the user experience on its own.

  • Are Users Stupid?

    Opponents of the usability movement claim that it focuses on stupid users and that most users can easily overcome complexity. In reality, even smart users prefer pursuing their own goals to navigating idiosyncratic designs. As Web use grows, the price of ignoring usability will only increase.

  • Does the Internet Make Us Lonely?

    Studies of the social impact of the Internet must consider the changing lifestyle of the new economy and not relate solely to industrial-age concepts.

  • Why People Shop on the Web

    A survey of 1,780 people who have bought something on the Web found that convenience and ease of use are the main reasons to shop on the Web. Non-buying visits (product research) are important to shoppers.

  • The Web Usage Paradox: Why Do People Use Something This Bad?

    90% of all websites have poor usability - so why do users still use the Web (and like it, too)?